The cooking of fresh shellfish or crustaceans has always presented some people with an ethical dilemma. The flesh of a crustacean decays very quickly after death which significantly affects the flavour of the meat. Lobsters and other crustaceans do spoil rapidly after death, which is why many buyers insist on receiving them alive.
If the lobster is "headed" before or soon after death, the body meat will keep fresh longer. This is because the head area contains the thorax which is the site of most of the viscera and gills which spoil much more rapidly than the claw or tail meat.
Freezing slows deterioration and harmful chemical reactions that follow death.
Neither of these solutions are totally effective as they either involve removing parts of the animal or the possibility of damaging the delicate flesh through freezing. The most desirable method of cooking crustaceans is when they are at their optimum freshness i.e. alive. However many people have an ethical objection to the concept of cooking a live animal.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for applying an electric current to a crustacean which overcomes or at least mitigates one or more of the problems noted above.